Round the World in 90 days!

This is our last blog entry (ooohhhhh)

Im sitting in the Qantas lounge waiting for our final flight which gets us back home! Hallelujah and Praise the Lord. Don't get me wrong - we have loved our travels and most of all we have missed home even more. So it will be great to see everyone, feed our dog, wash our clothes and all the rest of things that we take for granted in being at 'home'.

Hong Kong wasn't what we expected! The food was terrible - in fact is was worse than the chinese food that you pick up at the Robina Town Centre for $6 a plate. We were very dissappointed. But thankfully most of Hong Kong is very westernised so we just managed to eat at KFC, McDonalds and some other 'safe' food outlets. KFC was weird. They served rice and their chips looked like a crisp crossed with a potato wedge. Oh yeah and at the KFC we ate at they had annoying 'elevator or lift' music playing the background - sent me flippin mad!

We managed to get up to Victoria Peak and get a great view of Hong Kong, as well as checking out a fishing village and walking through Stanley Market. THe hotel where we stayed was nice but they placed us in a room right next to the service elevators - so we could hear the lifts going up and down all night. In fact right now I can still hear those blasted lifts.

Our last stop was Phuket, which we stayed in Panwa beach. It is a quiet and private beach on the western side of Phuket Island. Most of the action is in Patong which is on the East side. We were very happy here as all we wanted to do (and did) was lay on the beach, eat amazing Thai food and catch some sunrays and zzzz. We did manage to get into some retail therapy though. I was doing all the bartering then I let Jo loose on these poor handbag vendors in the markets - I tell ya they didn't know what hit them! She was a woman on a mission. After this Jo had the 'barter' bug and adrenaline kicked in so it was barter, barter, barter for everything.

On our last day we went for an Elephant trek through the hills on Phuket. Very cool. We were on Tungyip a 30 yr old female elephant - she was very gentle on us in walking around the jungle. After the ride we got off and fed our elephant some watermelon, pineapple, bananas and sugarcane. She didn't like the pineapple - but she couldn't get enough of the bananas. After feeding Tungyip we saw a young elephant training camp where the young elephants showed off their skills in playing soccer, playing harmonicas, dancing, painting, and many other such 'cute and adorable' little tricks and antics. One elephant was such a show off that when the dance music came on - she pushed the other elephants out of the way and stood right in everyones line of sight doing her dance. HAd us in stitches. We then fed them some bananas and it was back to our hotel.

Our last night we decided to head up to the top of the hill where we saw a little restaurant and had been telling us the whole time in Phuket that we needed to go eat there once. Anyway - we made the journey there and found that the restaurant didn't open at night but only during the day. Dissappointed we headed back to our hotel and on the way Jo fell over and grazed her knee and hand. We laughed it off that night as the way Jo fell was hilarious. But as we were leaving the hotel today Jo went to get a couple more photos of the beach and with camera in hand did another fall this time however rolling her ankle - so not so funny!

Well what a way to end our trip! Gotta go out with some 'memorable' moment.

Thank-you for joining with us on this once in a lifetime journey. We glad you shared our adverture with us, and hope you learnt something and had a laugh or two cause we certaintly did!

Look forward to talking to you soon

Matt & Jo

We spent our last few hours in London catching up with some friends – expected and unexpected. Matt caught up with one of his old friends from Uni, which the timing was great as he had just announced his engagement to his girlfriend of 9 years 3 days before we caught up with him.

London decided to be really warm and sunny on the day we were leaving, so heading out to the airport it was nice to see people walking around in shorts and t-shirts with smiles. They did look like aliens with their fluro white skin though!

Arriving at the airport we had just found out that our upgrade request to Business Class had been accepted so we were overly excited. However when we checked in, the lady at the counter said that our booking was mixed up. She got on the phone and then asked Matt if he knew Paul Vipiana (another old school mate). Paul then appeared and we caught up for a half an hour before we went through to the international lounge. Whilst we said our goodbyes to Paul he said, oh yeah the seats I put you on in Business Class are the best seats on the plane – enjoy!

Needless to say Jo was all excited so when we got on the plane she was pushing buttons on the flat bed seats and touching everything. The whole point of the Business Class is to lay down properly and get some good rest – with Jo that never happened. She was so preoccupied with playing she forgot about the ‘sleep’ part.

Arriving in Bangkok we stepped out into pure heat and humidity – yes!!! And then we got to our hotel – wow. Pure 5 star luxury. We had gotten used to staying in hovels and holes in the walls in UK and Europe so this was just a big change. King Size bed, air con, mini bar and everything brand new. Also free internet in our room – a big change from sitting on the 5th floor lift area carpet just so we can get wireless internet. Glorious Days are here again!

The next day we went out venturing through the shopping district of Bangkok. Everything is very cheap by our standards, but you still need to barter. However after buying 7 shirts, 1 pair of jeans, 2 shorts, 2 shoes, a tailor made suit (jacket, pants, shirt, 2 ties), swim wear, DJ headphones and 6 DVDs, I still think we got ripped off by what the locals could have paid. Food is so cheap here too. We went out for dinner and a movie and all up it cost us about $19. How long ago was it when you could go out for a 3 course dinner and a movie for 2 people for under $20 all up??

Today we are just chilling at our hotel, as the last couple of days shopping have been exhausting. So just a whole heap of laying on the sun beds and swimming in the pool. Also might go grab an hour massage for about $6. Tomorrow we are off to Singapore for an overnight stay then onto the cruise boat which takes us through the popular ports in South East Asia.